My day started off by waking up at a time i didn’t ever want to face- 4:45am. And i knew immediately that i was going to be shattered the entire day. We arrived at church for 5:50am and each of us got assigned a St Patrick’s student to sit next to for the mass since we where doing a day in the life of a St Patrick’s student today. After church we all walked towards the dining room where we had our breakfast. We had “porridge” which I would say tasted more similar to sugary slime but i still managed to swallow my pride and gulp it all down since i couldn’t sit facing all of the students saying that I don’t like the food they eat everyday. Not long afterward we all went to our first class, mine’s was maths. This class filled me with joy as we were learning about stuff that we learn back at home which for a short moment brought us all together and made me forget about the drastic differnce of our lifestyles. My second class was computing science where they where learning about all the keys on the keyboard which initially confused me as I thought it was common sense but then after deeper thought I felt a wave of sadness when I realised that the things that seem so normal to us are like aliens to some people since they aren’t as privileged as us and get access to all types of technology. 

For break one of the boys took me around the school and then he insisted on buying me some type of bread from the tuck shop despite begging him not to. This warmed my heart since even though they don’t have a lot all of the boys still go out of their way to give us the best they can and more. The part of the day i was dreading most was lunch time and when it finally came around I got too scared and backed down. Me and Keira thought we had managed to escape when we went to go home but too our suprise we where greeted by many of the students and got hurried into the dining room. After i’d sat down i looked around myself and found that we where surrounded but roughly ten people staring down at us. Once I had finally built up the courage I lifted up the nsima with my hand and scooped some beans onto it. The texture of the food on my hands immediately made me feel nauseous, but I still put it in my mouth and swallowed it. However my worst nightmare happened, the minute it hit my throat iI boaked and tears started running down my face. I instantly felt embarressed but instead of everyone that was watching me judge me they all laughed and chose to see the humorous side of it instead of getting offended. Despite them not judging me (well at least not to my face) I still feel guilty for making them think that the food they eat for two meals a day is inedible to me. 

Once the school day had ended we all decided to teach the boys how to play rounders which turned out to be a great success. Not long into the game we all realised that even though it was their first time playing the game they where still better than us at it. This further displayed how talented all of the students in St Patrick’s are despite them having a poverty ridden lifestyle. This made me feel an immense amount of hope for each of them and also reminded me that life isn’t only about the amount of opportunities you get, it is about what you do with the opportunties you are given.

Grace